HEROIN OVERDOSE ANTIDOTE SHOULD BE GIVEN TO PRISONERS, MINISTERS TOLD

The Government's Official Drug Advisers Say 'Magic Medicine' Naloxone
Could Save 500 Lives a Year

The government's official drug advisers are urging ministers to
provide all prisoners at risk of overdosing with a "magic medicine"
that could save up to 500 lives a year.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) wants all
prisoners leaving jail in Britain handed packs of naloxone, a drug
that reverses the symptoms of a morphine or heroin overdose for 45
minutes, which could be long enough to get emergency treatment.

Professor Les Iversen, the ACMD chairman, is pressing Home Office and
Department of Health ministers to make the drug available to
prisoners across England and Wales.

One in eight prisoners take a heroin overdose within two weeks of
their release. Recent medical research suggests the increased risk
for overdose for prisoners on release is most likely related to them
taking heroin when they have a low tolerance to the drug, following a
period of non-use or reduced use behind bars.

"A single injection can bring them back to life again. It really is a
magic medicine," Iversen told an open meeting of the ACMD in London.
"It is safe and it is very unlikely to be misused as it has the
opposite effects to the opiates." He said about one in 200 heroin
injectors died within a fortnight of leaving prison.

Scotland is pioneering the use of the drug to tackle overdose-related
deaths. The Scottish government is about to spend UKP500,000 to fund
the distribution of 10,000 units of naloxone in kits which can be
administered by family members and carers who can be trained to
inject the antidote.

David Liddell of the Scottish Drugs Forum told the ACMD meeting in
London that Scotland had the highest drug-related death rate in
Europe. "Quite a number of the 500 drug-related deaths a year in
Scotland could be prevented by the use of naloxone," he said.

The kits are distributed in Scotland through needle exchanges as well
as to prisoners thought to be at risk. More than half the 450 regular
users of the Inverness needle exchange are being given naloxone kits.

"You can't recover if you are dead. This should be seen as part of
the recovery approach to drug treatment. I would urge other parts of
the UK to look at this situation," said Liddell.

The pilot schemes in Scotland have had critics. Professor Neil
McKeganey, of Glasgow University's Centre for Drug Misuse Research,
has said: "There is a real possibility that some addicts will be
prepared to use higher dosages of heroin, confident that they can
reverse the effects if they need to."

But the government's drug experts have been impressed by the results
of a London pilot scheme conducted for the National Treatment Agency.
The Welsh assembly also established some "demonstration sites" for
take-home naloxone about 18 months ago.

Iversen said there were legal issues with the national availability
of naloxone. But it was important to get the kits to family or
friends. "If the user keels over he can't inject himself."